Diamonds are for Marriage: The Australian's Society Bride

The humiliation was not to be borne. Neither was it to be permitted. Rupert Blanchard reached out for a small trophy that sat on his desk, then crushed it in his bare hand.

CHAPTER SIX

AS THEY CAME out of the study and walked quickly towards the entrance hall, they saw Jinty poised in an attitude of listening at the bottom of the staircase. Obviously she was wondering what was going on, so she had taken the opportunity to eavesdrop. What they didn’t know was that Jinty was also taking a near primitive satisfaction in the fact that Tonya, her own sister, had missed out. Not that she had ever had a chance, but then Tonya had never really caught on to the hard realities of life.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, adopting an expression of concern. Impossible not to notice the look of strain on their faces.

“Not exactly,” Boyd said, his tone almost breezy. “Dad isn’t best pleased by our news.”

“Did you think he would be?” Jinty asked, throwing out her hands, palms up. “He was sure you’d go for Chloe.”

“Maybe not. But did he—or anyone else for that matter—really think I was going to go along with his plans?” Boyd gave a slight grimace. “If he’s so very fond of Chloe he should divorce you, then ask Chloe to marry him. There’s every chance she’ll say yes.”

Jinty wondered if he weren’t spot on. “Actually, I rather liked Chloe,” she said. “A thoroughly nice, malleable young woman, but clearly she’s no match for Leo, who has so many things going for her.” The merest flicker of malice. “Should I go to him?” Jinty looked from one to the other. “Be supportive?”

“Of what, Jinty?” Boyd asked, very direct. “You’re going to back us, then?”

“Why, certainly!” Jinty said without a blink. “Somehow I’ll make your father understand that Leo is your choice. Heavens, the whole time we’ve been married, Rupert has doted on Leo. Occasionally it has made me quite jealous. God knows it’s no secret that Rupert doesn’t love me. We rub along well together, that’s all. I do have the certainty I’ll be a rich woman for life but there’s little in it for me of the heart. Shall I go to him?”

“Only if you want your head bitten off,” Boyd replied. “Dad could do that quite easily. Incidentally, has he seen Drew Morse lately? I think he should have a check-up; his colour didn’t look too good. The thing is there’s no crossing Dad. He can’t deal with it.”

“Well, that’s nothing new to me,” Jinty said and briefly shut her eyes. “Rupert expects everyone to obey his every whim. Anyway, I must apologise for Tonya.”

“Oh, gosh, whatever for?” Boyd asked sardonically.

“Poor Tonya never mastered the social niceties, which is one reason why she’s still unmarried.”

“Perhaps she should enrol in a personal development course,” Boyd suggested.

Jinty blinked, then reassumed her practised smile. “Be that as it may, I do sincerely wish you and Leo the very best, Boyd. Rupert can’t dictate everyone’s life.”

“Certainly not mine,” Boyd clipped off. “Now I’m driving Leo back to Sydney. No way do I want her driving herself after an upset like that. Ask Eddie to drive her car to her apartment some time tomorrow. I’ll organise someone to drive him back.” He glanced down at the silent Leo, who was looking and feeling shell-shocked. “We’ll collect our luggage and be off. Where shall we leave Leo’s keys, Jinty?”

“On the console table, please,” Jinty said, gesturing. She was already starting to walk down the corridor that led to her husband’s inner sanctum. “I have my own fears for Rupert’s health,” she paused to confide. “He drinks far more than is good for him and I can’t get him off his infernal cigars.”

“Picked up the habit from his own father and his father before him,” Boyd said, still scanning Leona’s pale face. “Let’s collect the luggage.” He spoke to her quietly. “I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

“Where are we going?” They were driving into Sydney before Leona came out of her reverie—a long internal dialogue that had never stopped.

Boyd was staring straight ahead. He too had been very quiet on the trip, which seemed to have taken record time.

“My place,” he said briefly.

For once Leona didn’t argue.

Fifteen minutes later they slid into the underground car park of Boyd’s grand old apartment building, which had undergone mammoth restoration only a few years before. Boyd had the penthouse, which was actually two units that had been turned into a very spacious unified whole. She had never been to the penthouse on her own but she had been invited many times to his dinner parties.

In silence they took the lift to the top, Leona not even knowing what she was doing. She felt so dazed and astounded by both Boyd’s and Rupert’s disclosures that she had difficulty taking it all in. It seemed to her like something out of a blockbuster novel filled with family secrets, money, sex and complex people with passionate unfulfilled yearnings. Or did novels only mirror real life? She had always known that Alexa’s marriage had been unhappy, but never in a million years would she have suspected that Rupert had fallen blindly in love, however briefly, with her own mother, Serena. Yet Boyd had known and he had never said a word.

Until tonight.

No wonder he felt so connected.

To her.

They were inside. Leona waited. She didn’t move.

“You’re in shock, aren’t you?” Boyd asked, closing thumb and finger around her chin, lifting it. He stared down into her face in concern.

“You know I am.” She turned her eyes away from his searching regard, staring at without really seeing a large, light-filled Australian bush landscape that hung above the modern console in the entrance hall.

“I don’t blame you.” He dropped his hand, then took her gently by the arm. “Do you feel like something to eat? We could eat here or we could go out. I know an excellent Italian restaurant within walking distance.”

She allowed him to lead her into the living room, with its double height coffered ceiling and contemporary architect-designed furniture. The total effect was one of supremely elegant individualism. Masculine, most certainly, modernistic, but welcoming to women. She knew Boyd had bought the place because of its history. This was one of Sydney’s grand old dowager buildings with stunning night-time views of the city skyline. As well there were those soaring ceilings and the classic architectural elements which included marvellous fluted columns that divided the open-plan living-dining area. Architects and decorators had worked around the clock before Boyd had moved in.

“Well?” he prompted, steering her towards a custom built sofa.

“I’m not hungry.”

“All the same, you should eat something. My father is a very devious complex character, but you can’t let him get to you. I for one am starving. I always have a very light lunch before a match—God, it seems like years ago instead of this afternoon—nothing at all at afternoon tea, there were so many people wanting to talk to me. I need to feel human again.”

“It was wrong of you not to tell me,” she said, clutching a striped silk cushion to her breast like some kind of defence.

He sat down beside her, intensity in his blue eyes. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and navy jeans and even then he was handsome enough to take a woman’s breath away. “Tell you what?” he asked. “That my father was infatuated with your mother, who had no idea at all, for a brief period in their lives? What good would that have done?”

She turned on him fiercely, tears standing in her eyes. “It would have explained Rupert’s attitude towards me. He’s never seen me as a person in my own right. When he looks at me he sees my mother.”

“We all do, Leo,” Boyd pointed out gently. “For that matter, I couldn’t count the number of people who’ve remarked on the colour and shape of my eyes. Everyone in the family knows I inherited my eyes from my mother.”

“So some part of them does remain?” she asked more calmly.

“Definitely. Turn your head and the family see Serena. Turn your head and you’ll see Blanchards, dead or alive. Every family has its own genetic blueprint.”

She couldn’t be consoled. “It was sick, Rupert lusting after my mother. I can’t use any other word. She was a happily married woman. Besides, he had a most beautiful wife—your mother. I always knew Aunt Alexa had suffered.”

“Most of us get to do our share of suffering, Leo,” he said in a taut voice, taking the cushion from her and throwing it onto an armchair. “Falling in love isn’t all that rational, is it? It blindsides us. Dad didn’t do anything too terrible. He didn’t go after Serena like he goes after everything he wants. He didn’t break up his marriage, which evolved into little more than shadow play, or hers. My mother stayed for me. Much as I’m not in a mood to say it, I have to consider Dad as a victim. Falling in love with the wrong woman could be a very special hell.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve waited a hell of a long time for you.”

That filled her with real shock, then a wave of elation that quickly gave way to suspicion. “So I was being seriously considered from early on?” She didn’t wait for an answer but swept on. “At some level you hate your father, don’t you?”

His handsome features tightened. “No, I don’t hate him, Leo,” he said, putting his hand over hers. “How can I? I don’t want to hate anyone. It does no good at all and he is my father. He’s always backed me.”

“Not in this!” Her breath fluttered and she drew her hand away from the surge in her blood. “Is that why you’re doing it?”

He trapped her hand again, his blue eyes burning into her. “I’ll forget you said that.”